Chapter XI11. 



THE COMPOSITE FAMILY. 



The object of the beautiful colour of flowers is to render 

 them conspicuous amongst the foliage in order that birds 

 or insects may see them from a distance and be attracted. 

 We call them beautiful because they please us; had it 

 been an advantage to them to have been black and ugly, 

 they would have undoubtedly been so. We are of no con- 

 sequence to them. They put on their adornments to please 

 beings which to them are of much greater importance. 



Some plants have very large showy flowers; others bring 

 about the same result by massing together great numbers 

 of small flowers. Silver Wattle has flowers of very small 

 size, yet we can distinguish a flowering Wattle at a dis- 

 tance of some miles. When small flowers are massed 

 together, this occurs in all conceivable forms of looseness 

 or compactness, according to the species. This is sometimes 

 carried so far that the head of flowers look for all the 

 world like a single flower, and in general talk we speak of 

 it as such. A Chrysanthemum, Dahlia, or Aster is a single 

 flower till we examine it, when we find it is really made up 

 of a great number of minute flowers, which we commonly 

 call florets, because they are small. We respect popular 

 opinion, and still call the whole head a flower, though it is 

 not one. Or we may be a little more accurate, and call it 

 a composite flower. 



Composite flowers appear in many different families; 

 but in one in particular. They are almost universal, and 

 it has pleased botanists to call it the Composite Family, 

 though we must remember that all composite flowers do 

 not belong to it. Tough Bark and Pincushion do not 

 belong to it; but the three already mentioned, together 

 with Daisy, Everlasting, Buttons, Dandelion, and a host 

 of others, do. In order to understand the family we must 

 study the structure of a floret. Unfortunately, being very 

 small, it requires strong eyesight or the use of a lens. Take 

 a Daisy flower, and for preference the flower of one of our 

 common Daisy shrubs or the tree we call Musk. Outside 

 is a close arrangement of green bracts, recalling the appear- 

 ance of a calyx; its purpose is for protection, and is called 

 an involucre. It varies greatly in different kinds 

 flowers. Here each bract is green, tipped with a coloured 



